I'm trying to get my head around the judge with three wives (in Utah, of course). Aren't judges supposed to follow the laws they uphold? Aren't there laws against polygamy? Don't we have a bit of a contradiction here? Not, apparently, in the eyes of Utah's attorney general, who has refused to prosecute. The state's Judicial Conduct Commission appears to take the situation a bit more seriously: it has ordered the judge off the bench. He's appealing to the state Supreme Court, though. In the words of his attorney, Rod Parker, "There is no allegation that it's affecting his performance on the bench. It really is truly only about his private conduct."
Well, now, let's think about that. I'm against any kind of abuse of women, emotional or physical, and the women at Tapestry Against Polygamy are pretty convincing about the abusive nature of many of those polygamous marriages. But if consenting adults are happy to be in a polygamous marriage? Yes, indeedy, that's private conduct, so long as they don't try and get multiple marriage certificates (apparently the judge is only legally married to one of the wives, so you can make the case that he is following the letter of the law). And if polygamy is private, and thus ok, how about polyamory? It's not my thing, but if that's where you want to go, well, it's your private life. And homosexuality? Yup, private, so long as it doesn't affect anyone's performance on the bench, metaphorically speaking.
I don't know about you, but I'm thinking Lambda Legal Defense Fund should be filing a brief in support of this guy.
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